My 90s Platform Buffalo boots have disintegrated. It's the end of an era...

Spice Girls wearing their Buffalo's in the 90s

The 90s are dead.

For me anyway. For although a 90s fashion revival buzzes and swirls all around us, one of the last tangible connections to my 90s youth - my 1336 black leather Buffalo boots - just crumbled like thick tarry dust in my hands. My Buffalo boots just died - and my heart slightly broke.

This is as much a cautionary tale as anything else. I had no idea something so dramatic could happen to shoes. Especially since they looked completely healthy. A little dusty maybe, but nothing more. But these were a pair of boots that I'd not worn in twenty years.  I had no intention of getting rid of them -  selling them or giving them away - because the sentimental attachment was just too great.

The famed 'Cloud Sole' Buffalo boots and the 90s and the classic trainer style

If you are a British teen growing up in the late 2010's, you've experienced a plethora of traumatic world events, from Brexit, to a worldwide pandemic, financial instability and now, thanks to social media, the close up images of a war and all it's horrific fallout. It's no surprise that the Brexit generation is looking back to the simpler, more optimistic 90s for inspiration, fashion or otherwise.

The cultural legacy of the Buffalo boot is unparalleled. Although the fugly, comically chunky shoe is synonymous with British street-style and clubwear, it was actually made in Germany, by a German, Michael Conrad, who was inspired by Mexican cowboy boots. (I can't quite see the connection either, but according to the Buffalo website, this is where the Buffalo boot's origin story begins.) Conrad visited Mexico in 1976 and admiring the Mexican cowboy boots, stocked up on them and sold them to German fashionistas on his return home. Buffalo boots GmbH was founded in 1979 in Wiesbaden and went international in 1984. 

The Buffalo Store, Frankfurt

In 1995, Conrad created a "sport shoe line which, with it's platform sole was highly innovative in the international market." The Buffalo 'Classic' with it's 'Cloud Sole' became it's signature shoe alongside the edgier 'RingTower', a colossal wedge platform trainer and graced the fashionable feet of everyone from Cher to Madonna to NSync.

Coinciding with the Techno explosion in Frankfurt, and the grunge movement (via the U.S) in the U.K, the Buffalo chimed in with the zeitgest of the time - that of optimism and youthful rebellion.

The Buffalo also represented 90s 'Girl Power' and was adopted by the Spice Girls (sans 'Posh' Victoria) as their footwear of choice.

As of 2021/22 Buffalo is aiming to become more sustainable. 80% of it's output will be PETA-friendly. That means no leather and the polyurothane sole (of which my Buffalo boots were made), will stay. And herein lies the rub (or lack of rubber?). Because PU does not last forever...

My Buffalos in better days

 

I bought my Buffalo boots in the late 90s - 97 or 98, when I lived and worked in Bristol. The shoes had been made big by the Spice Girls - they tended to be seen in the more colourful lace up versions of the shoe. But they were also big on the Bristol clubbing scene.They also appealed to 'alternative' followers of fashion - skater girls, emos, goths, harajuku girls and of course, shorter girls who wanted the 3 inch lift that Buffalo boots provided in the form of a comfy trainer. Their reach was practically universal.

My version of the boot had a velcro strap and made me nearly 6 feet tall. I worked in a pub at the time, and nearly every girl who worked behind the bar owned a version of Buffalos. It was practically a work uniform - we all wore them the same way - with 90s flared trousers or jeans and a crop top or tiny tee. I liked to wear mine with my black Miss Sixty flares, a crop top and a ton of silver jewellery - massive hoop earrings, chunky necklaces, chokers, silver rings mixed with colourful perspex rings. It was a fun, quirky look, with more than nod to Japanese anime. Especially when worn with 90s make up - thin eyebrows, spidery black mascara with glittery eyeshadow and matte brown lips. 

The disaster that befell my beloved Buffs

Buffalos were great for festivals - thanks to the aforementioned platform, they kept you elevated - which had a dual purpose of keeping you a couple of extra inches away from the muddy ground but also a few inches above people's heads which meant a better view of the stage.

The last time I wore my Buffalos was to Ashton Court festival around 2000. Some careful forensic examination of the grooves in that famous heel showed some grassy mud stuck there. The main shoe however, although a little dusty was in perfect condition.

When I moved back to London, my Buffalos suddenly felt unsophisticated for my new surroundings. Bristol's laid back vibe fitted Buffalos perfectly, but in London they didn't feel quite right. So my Buffalos were relegated to a shelf in my room where I stored all my shoes that were beloved in some way, but no longer worn. Buffalo boots seemed to fall out of favour for the next 15-20 years, until the 90s revival of recent years when they had a massive resurrection in an around 2018. 

On their way to the dump

I bought my Buffalos from the Buffalo shop at the bottom of Bristol's trendy Park Street. A mecca shoe store for the young and fashionable.The shop has long since gone, but I remember it clearly - row upon row of Buffalo boots in every colour and style you could imagine. Buffalo did do other styles of shoe - wacky 70s platform boots and a high, high stiletto court shoe in loud and proud patent red or black - the antithesis of the sturdy Buffalo boot - more of a stripper shoe in fact. When choosing my Buffalos, I  remember choosing the 1336 as it was the least 'Spice Girls' of all the Buffalos. I paid £90 which was a hefty chunk of a barmaid's paycheck.

Today they sell for upwards of £150. Even though I have a vintage shop where I sell pieces mainly from the 90s and early Y2K, I could not part with by boots. The memories I had attached to them made it almost sacrilegious to get rid of them for something as common as money. I did recently decide however, that other boots and shoes from the shelf would have to go. My shoe collection had reached 'a pair for every day of the year' proportions, and I needed space. I took my Buffalos down to clean them and pack them away in a box. I'd dusted them over the years, but not 'moved' them as such. They wouldn't move. They were stuck. I had to 'peel' my boots off the shelf. But that wasn't the worst of it. I  was never expecting what happened next could happen...

Fortunately my platform leather/suede Buffalo boots are still alive and well

The heels of my boots were coming off in huge chunks in my hands, while other parts crumbled like tarry black dust onto the floor. As I desperately tried to hold the shoes together, the more they disintegrated.  It was as if a techno loving vampire from the 90s had been staked, and his/her shoes were the last thing to crumble, leaving a soup of vampire goo and claggy black dust on the floor.  It was heart-breaking and fascinating in equal measure. Who knew shoes could do this?

The science behind the disintegration is to do with the fact the soles are PU and not rubber. After 15 years or so, a process called hydrolisis takes place.

The Buffalo store in NYC 2018

PU consists of long polymer chains that are gradually split apart due to the effect of moisture. As a consequence, PU loses flexibility over time and gradually becomes brittle -  most of the plasticiser vaporises out of the sole and so begins to crumble. 

But why can storing shoes often be more detrimental to their useful life than if they are worn?

Shoes are often stored in the basement, shed or garage – places where higher levels of moisture are normally present. And it is precisely this moisture that amplifies the hydrolysis process and causes the shoes to age even more quickly, even though they are not actually being worn.You can only prolong this slow death and not stop it by keeping your Buffalos in a dry, cool place. Wearing them from time to time so there is movement in the sole and the polymer does not crystalize will also help prolong their life.

2018 collection in NYC

Can you repair or replace your Buffalo platform soles? There is a cobbler in Germany who specialises in replacing destroyed Buffalo soles, but it's a pricey endeavour. The link to their website is: spezialreparaturen

My shoes ended up in the local dump. As I hurled what was left of them into the giant recycling skip at Regis Road, I tried to look on the bright side: that's quite a big space they've left on my shoe shelf...I'll need to find something to fill it with.

I've opened a Vintage shop online - and I'm selling all my 90s treasures!

Ever since opening my online Vintage clothing and accessories shops on eBay and Depop, (camden.locker and camdenlocker respectively), I have noticed the huge nostalgia for all things 90s. Having been a teenager of the 90s myself, it's been handy to sell off all my old 90s clubwear and accessories to todays youth, who want an authentic piece of the real 90s in their wardrobe, rather than a reproduction. 

Personally, other than the fact I lived through those years, I hold no such desire to wear the clothes of the 90s again - the Buffalo boots and the wide-leg flares with tiny cropped tops; pinning my hair up in little butterfly clips like Geri Spice; the highly pigmented brown lipstick and pencil thin brows.  It's definitely not a look I hanker to return to in my 40s.

I am therefore happy to supply today's teenage somethings with all my old favourite pieces, and see them go off to a new home where someone else can enjoy them as much as I did. But it's been hard letting my old loved items go. A red silky snakeskin halter-neck top I bought in Portobello Market when I was 17 looks barely used even though I wore it over and over, and was practically fought over. I couldn't fit into it anymore, otherwise I'd have definitely kept it. It was a random brand I'd not heard of - Salem -  but whatever I'd seen in it all those years ago, clearly translated over the decades, and it ended up going to a girl who adored it - and who sent me a lovely message about how much she loved it. This made it much easier to let go.

The Salem top

I might sound like I'm being a little dramatic talking about 'letting go' of a piece of clothing like it's a pet, or an adored family heirloom, but for me, clothing can carry memories as much as any item we hold dear. This top took me on some amazing holidays, saw me through university, spent some epic nights out with me and received some fantastic compliments. It has stayed tucked away in my wardrobe for nearly thirty years, in the vain hope that I'll fit into it one day again. I guess I could have passed it on to family, but somehow having to look at it on someone else who I know is somehow worse. So letting it go to a stranger who loves it seems the next best thing. Otherwise I'd be keeping it forever, and lightening up my wardrobe has become a necessity. 

I am  - I will admit, a hoarder of the worst order. Maybe not the 'piling up old newspapers in the bath and storing plastic bags filled with junk you've picked up on the street in the kitchen sink' kind of hoarder. I've been in several hoarder's homes and it is the stuff horror films are made of. I don't want to be one of those people - living in a house full of old memories you can't let go of - that was depressing to even write.  But I do have a tendency to sentimentally attach memories to clothes and knick knacks in a way I have noticed others do not. Not being able to throw away a pair of trousers I will never again wear, because I wore them to a party I remember having fun at, or not being able to burn a candle that was given to me by a friend 30 years ago because, well, it's a candle and would disappear once i'd used it, is maybe not in the 'crazy hoarder' category' but it's swinging in the same ballpark. 

I still think about a keyring I threw away one time when I decided to have a clearout and throw away anything that was broken. This particular keyring was from the 80s - a blue plastic rollerskate with yellow wheels. I can remember buying it - I was walking home from Saturday school with my dad, and he took me into a toyshop come newsagents in Kentish Town. I remember choosing it, choosing the colour and wearing it on my bag (I didn't own keys yet). But twenty years later, one of the wheels was missing, and that day when I did that clearout, I was feeling particularly ruthless, and threw that keyring away. And I still think about it to this day. Then there was the time I overgenerously gave away my favourite oversized 90s Levis jeans jacket to a cousin. It was the noughties, and oversized jeans jackets were not the rage anymore - slim fit skinny ones were. He'd come to London and went to Camden Market looking for the perfect jean jacket. When he couldn't find one, I immediately thought of the one in my wardrobe. The one I'd worn through the 90s and adored, but which wasn't quite fashionable at the time. It fitted his bulkier frame perfectly. But a few yeasrs ago, when oversized jean jackets came back in, i thought of that jacket. I even looked for it, thinking that maybe I'd dreamt giving it away. I hadn't. I hope he bloody loved that jacket. I still think about it. I wonder if he passed it on to his daughter to wear. Or if he threw it out (shudder).

So the fear of making mistakes like this again made me go through a period of literally throwing nothing away. Nothing. Or very little. Even when one Christmas, someone bought me a copy of 'Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, and I managed to do a massive declutter - 6 bin bags and several boxes went to charity -  but it didn't even touch the sides.  Now my home resembles a cross between the Stables Market in Camden, with all it's old trinkets and vintage clothes and an homage to everything I've ever done, seen, known or loved since 1985. 

The Christmas present

My friend Amy has a technique to avoid clutter. She has one of everything, and If she buys something new, she will throw away whatever it is it has replaced. If she buys a new handbag, she throws her old one away. Buys a new laptop, throws the old one away. This is clever. But the problem is, what if you're the type of person who buys something when you're old vresion of that thing is still ok? What if you're the kind of person who wants more than one black handbag? Amy's technique only works for those who have a minimalist mindset. I have at least 50 pairs of black jeans. At least. I am clearly not an Amy.

What I dream of, is a minimlaist Swedish clutter free house - airy and light like a spring cloud. All white and wooden with marble surfaces. maybe a duck egg blue here or there or a light grey. There are fresh blossom somewhere in this dream. Most of all, there are free surfaces. I dream of surfaces - empty,  clutter-free, - but for a quirky vase, a white one, ceramic, with a couple of eucalyptus branches stuck in it for that 'Vogue living' look you see in magazines. I dream of space. I have no space. I dream of space where I can roll out a yoga mat in my bedroom and freely fling myself about pretending to be a warrior or a tree. I want to be able to salute the sun without knocking over a vase and a porcelain Bambi whose tail doubles up as a ring holder. The gulf between the two types of living space the cramped and cluttered and the airy and roomy - what i have and what i want - is vast. Something had to give.

'Just chuck it all' a friend of mine said over coffee yesterday. "If you don't need it and you don't wear it  - especially if you haven't worn it in twenty years, just get rid of it'. I know he is right in a way. But seeing all my old memories end up in landfill is not the answer.  It's not right for my head - I'll just end up thinking about it like I still think about that rollerskate keyring. Nor is it environmentally the right thing to do. The amount of clothes in landfill - well, that's a whole other article. So selling it on to someone else who will love it as much as I did or do, and make their own memories in it the way I did, seems to me the best compromise. 

Originally, when I first thought about writing this piece, it was going to be about how people who've had their teenage years in an era (mine in the 90s for instance) tend not to dive into that trend when it comes round for a second time. I remember talking to a friend who grew up in the 70s, telling me they'd never wear flares again (this was after they'd come round for the first time in the 90s) as they were there the first time round and were there when they lost their cool in the 80s. They'd been there and done it the first time round and it felt weird to do it again - to go back to your youth in that way. And that's what I inteded to write about. How I couldn't do the 90s again as I'd already done them, and how it would seem weird to revisit my youth in that way. But it turned into more of a piece on nostalgia itself, and time passing, and having to let things go. 

I can't keep all my stuff - and clothes, i've discovred don't keep well. Moths are little shits. They have no care for sentimentality - and no respect for expense either - the flying, egg laying eating machines tend to go for your priciest stuff - your silks and your cashmeres. They will munch through your Alexander McQueens and leave the Topshops which are stored in the same bag. That's just vindictive if you're asking me. It's like they know. And then there's the problems brought on by materials ageing. White's turn yellow, leather crumbles and goes sticky, shoes fall apart, and don't get me started on the little holes that appear from nowhere. Where do they come from??

The Miss Sixty vest

So if you're interested in some great 90s pieces, worn with love and handed on with the hope that you'll love them too, have a look at my shop. There's a Miss Sixty top that's causing a small furore. It's mad cute, and I love it even now. But I'll never fit into it again. I'll never again wear it with those black flarey trousers I always wore with it and my buffalo boots or my Adidas shelltoes. Someone else can though. Ahhhh my Buffalo boots. Original 90s Spice girl boots. Not touched since 1998. Still in their original box. They're staying with me. For now.